The product of this gene belongs to the plakin or cytolinker family of genes. The encoded protein is involved in cytoskeleton-membrane attachment in epithelial cells, muscle, and other tissues. It also may regulate changes of lymphocyte cytoarchitecture during polarization and extravasation. This gene has alternative splicing of different 5' exons to the first constant exon, which generates transcript variants that encode distinct isoforms. [provided by RefSeq].